Dugan5468: If your Roamio (and I presume the base version, not the Plus or Pro that can not tune OTA) has PLS (Lifetime) or "All-in," you can keep your Roamio for OTA recordings, especially the sub-channels. While Hoppers have PTAT and full guide data for all MAIN channal OTA's (a modest purchase of the OTA USB tuner can connect to the Hopper for single OTA tuner recording), Dish has EPG data for only SOME of the OTA sub-channels, while TiVo has virtually 100% EPG data for just about every OTA sub-channel. This can also take pressure of your H3. So, your investment in TiVo can still be paying back. I use my TiVo's for that purpose, and it works well. I do believe the Bolt--first most recent release--does NOT have OTA tuning capability. That is still to come in Bolt models released later this year. So, I don't know if you want to keep that or sell it on ebay or give it to someone, and all this depends upon wheater you are monthly plan or PLS. Also, the Bolt is FREE of fees the first year, but I don't know if you are on the hook for the year after that.
Of course, hold on to your TiVo's for awhile until you seem satisfied with Dish, which you really should be satisfied--AND ALWAYS COME TO THIS FORUM with any problems. Folks here can often provide you easy fixes and solutions that even the CSR's don't know abou, plus we have the DIRT team on this forum who will go the extra mile to see that you are satisfied and fix a problem.
Dish has a 30 day policy like TiVo does, so if for some reason it may not be for you, hold on to the TiVo's until then.
I should also tell you that Dish also has an external HDD feature at no extra charge. However, it differes from TiVo in how it works. While TiVo spans recordings across the internal HDD and external HDD, and will LOSE all recordings (recordings since the "marriage" of the internal and external HDD) if you divorce the external and internal HDD's, Dish's external HDD is an archival type of solution. You TRANSFER recordings to the external HDD. Then you can playback from that external HDD or TRANSFER to another Dish DVR on your account or you can TRANSFER the recordings back to the original internal HDD DVR. Also, Dish DVR's support an unlimited number of external HDD's while allowing up to TWO atttached and active at the same time (some people use USB hubs to pick and choose which of the many external HDD's to access). This is how you can expand your storage capacity for recordings. DVR recordings can ONLY be made to the internal HDD, not the external. So, if you are getting near capacity wiht your internal HDD, move stuff over to an external HDD and you have more room for recordngs.
This also means that you can move all your completed recordings to an external HDD if you think your internal DVR HDD is acting like it may die; you don't lose any of your recordings.
You can also have multiple external HDD's with any content you wish, such as one HDD for MOVIES, another HDD for a seperate household member, and another for TV Comedies, what ever you desire. Some on this forum have a few to several external HDD's with content. Personally, I am now in the habit of moving over any recordings I don't want to lose before I wathch them all so that if my internal HDD dies, I can still view those recordings.
Good luck! TiVo is a great product, but Dish DVR's are at least as good, but even better IMHO, especially the Hopper family.
